Tuesday morning markets round-up

Mobile phone giant Vodafone did little for fragile market confidence today after reporting its first drop in revenues for ten quarters. The poor set of half-year figures, including a £6bn write down on the value of businesses in Spain and Italy, triggered a 3 per cent fall for its shares and left the FTSE 100 Index 45.5 points lower at 5721.5.

Mobile phone giant Vodafone did little for fragile market confidence today after reporting its first drop in revenues for ten quarters.

The poor set of half-year figures, including a £6bn write down on the value of businesses in Spain and Italy, triggered a 3 per cent fall for its shares and left the FTSE 100 Index 45.5 points lower at 5721.5.

Vodafone was 5p lower at 162p but it was not the worst performer of the session after falls of nearly 4 per cent for miners Eurasian Natural Resources and Anglo American.

Energy companies were also lower after the City watchdog said it was investigating claims by a whistleblower that Britain's £300bn wholesale gas market has been manipulated. Centrica shares were 9.25p lower at 310.35p and SSE was off 28.5p to 1366.5p.

ITV shares jumped more than 5 per cent, up 4.5p to 91.3p, after it impressed analysts with further progress at its Studios business, which is due to make profits of more than £100m this year from selling shows such as Vera, Peter Andre: My Life Story and Homefront.

Revenues from television advertising were down 9 per cent in August but are likely to be flat in December as hit shows such as The X Factor reach their conclusion.